


A Good Day

by Ransomedbard



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, Dark, Gen, Monologue, Non-graphic Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-22 11:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22582318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ransomedbard/pseuds/Ransomedbard
Summary: As a young adult, Duo begins to unpack difficult memories from his time with Professor G’s rebel group, and confides in a trusted friend…
Kudos: 8





	A Good Day

“I was 12, maybe 13 at the time, and I was getting by on my own - odd jobs sometimes, but more often fencing what I stole. My luck had been off for a while and I made a bad hop - that’s stowing away on a ship - and they caught me. Well it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, there. They were so paranoid and asked me so many questions it was clear this was no ordinary transport; they were up to something and deathly afraid of being caught. So when the Professor offered to bring me in to their group I said yes with a quickness, ‘cause I was afraid it was that or the airlock. That’s how it started.”

“After we docked they blindfolded me and put me in a crate or trunk or something - my heart was beating like a rabbit - but when they let me out at their hideout it was an ok place, like an old factory with a warren of rooms to work and live in. And the Professor took me into the mess hall and introduced me to the rest of their group. A couple dozen of them, all adults. It was a real cold welcome, and the way they looked at me I thought it might turn ugly, but it didn’t because he was in charge - or rather, as I learned later, they needed him too much to piss him off.”

“So he leaves me there with them and it’s round two of questioning, and they seemed pleased when I repeated what I’d said when they caught me - ‘bount what the Alliance had taken from me - no lie, that. When they talked about themselves they were pretty vague, but I picked up little bits and pieces of what it was all about. I knew they were militants, and wanted to take down the Earth occupiers, hit them so hard the Colonies would be free. But how? No, that they wouldn’t tell me. I wasn’t allowed to see what they were working on or be present at their meetings. I didn’t dare try to see what was behind those giant doors. Looking back, I was sure they were back there making bombs, or missiles, or something - I never would have guessed what it really was.”

“I was in limbo there for a while. I had expected the Professor would give me something to do, but I barely ever saw him. Since I wasn’t allowed in their factory or lab, or even to touch a computer, I thought maybe they would want me to go out and steal for them. But they just laughed at me when I offered, which hurt my pride a bit. I mean, they had caught me so I could understand their scepticism, but on the whole I was pretty good at it. But I think they couldn’t see anything but my age. In any case, I wasn’t allowed to leave because they didn’t trust me. And I didn’t want them to think I was useless. So I just tried to earn my keep doing cleaning and stuff like that, but it was tense.”

“I wasn’t there long before I realized things weren’t going well for them; there was a lot of anger, and sometimes people went missing. I overheard whispers they had a mole - a sellout, someone feeding the government information. I was terrified they would think it was me somehow, even though they were still keeping me in the dark. I thought about trying to run but that would just make me look guilty, and these weren’t the kind of people you could cross. I was deep in a bad situation.”

“I think…that experience reinforced my fear of stability, of ‘staticness’. I had as much to eat as I wanted, I was clean, had a bed of my own, no one was stealing from me - in a physical sense it was a relief from struggle; comfortable. But my mind was a mess of restless fear. I was more afraid for my life than I’d been when I was homeless.”

“Then there was that day. I was cleaning the kitchen, and Jonah and Carrillo came in and told me they had caught the mole. It was one of the engineers that worked with the Professor, a guy named Mitya. They took me alone to one of the storage rooms to see him. I had a bad feeling…”

“Mitya was lying on the floor, hands tied behind his back. He didn’t look too roughed up, but he wasn’t moving and didn’t speak, so I knew they had already done something to him. Drugs, maybe.”

“Carrillo - she was sort of their enforcer, scary as hell, but she talked to me more than most so she knew my background, that I’d been in gangs before - turned to me and asked me what they did on the street to traitors. The way she asked the question, I knew she wanted a certain answer but I didn’t know what. I said we would take back what they stole if we could, and kick them out and make them leave our turf. She said ‘Did you hurt them’, and I said yeah, we would hit them sometimes in anger for what they did, but getting thrown out was the real punishment because now they were marked and no one else would trust them. She didn’t care for that, just kept asking ‘What did the other gangs do, Duo? What did the adults do to traitors? You’re going to be an adult soon.’ I knew what she wanted me to say, but I was scared.”

“Then she told me that Walsh and Zoe - those were two of the people that had gone missing - were caught by the Alliance and were in prison now, and Mitya was responsible. You have to understand, I hated being locked up back then more than anything. Other kids said it wasn’t so bad, at least they fed you, but I had been in ‘juvie’ jail a few times when I was younger and I loathed every second of it. They took everything from me and threw it away - my tools, my mementos, the weapons that I needed to defend myself, even the clothes they picked me up in. They asked me all these questions and twisted my words to make me sound guilty or crazy. They wouldn’t let me sleep when I wanted or save food for later. They had complete control over me and I couldn’t stand it. She knew all that, that’s why she told me, to make me hate Mitya for doing that to them for his own gain. She said they might never get out of prison and there needed to be a price.”

“She gave me the knife then. I knew it was an initiation - it felt like that. That was the only time Jonah spoke at all, he told me how to grab his shoulder and stab him from behind, in and up. I don’t think I could have done it if I could have seen Mitya’s face. It was over pretty quick. And then after, they told me I did well, and they took away his body.”

“I remember getting a mop to clean the blood off the floor, and being so relieved knowing that I wouldn’t be suspected any more. And hopeful that I would be more accepted now that I had done what they wanted, which turned out to be true; that started me on the path that led to me being chosen as the pilot. So that was a really good day; that’s how I remember it.”

“But when I look at it now, that’s pretty screwed up, right? I just used Mitya to get what I wanted, to raise my status in the group. I didn’t know or even care if he was the mole, or even if there was one to begin with. Maybe he was just a scapegoat. He was decent enough to me - he stood up for me once or twice when I was getting yelled at, and he had promised to teach me to weld, and he gave me his dessert a couple of times when he didn’t want it. He could be kinda irritable and short with everyone, but when he was happy he had a big laugh, and he had a wife and child he hadn’t seen in years but wanted to go back to someday.”

“What kind of person am I, that none of that mattered to me? What kind of person remembers the first time they killed someone as a good day?”


End file.
